Gibbs: Lobbying won't help

The White House is urging Hispanic, gay and women’s groups to back off as President Barack Obama chooses a nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I don’t think that the lobbying of interest groups will help,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Tuesday. “I think in many ways lobbying can – and will –be counterproductive.”

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Gibbs did not elaborate on how such an effort could backfire, but he was clearly in sync with an anonymous White House aide quoted Tuesday in a Washington Post story about hopes that Obama will name what many would consider the court’s first Latino justice.

“Public lobbying campaigns might be more unhelpful than helpful,” the official told the Post. “At the end of the day, the president will decide based on the qualities that he outlined the day that Justice Souter announced his retirement.”

Obama is scheduled to meet with several senators on Wednesday to talk about possible Supreme Court picks. But Gibbs signaled that the president was not eager for a large public debate about the pros and cons of specific candidates.

“I think the way the president conducted his vice presidential search, and the way he conducted a search for a Cabinet was his strong desire not to drag names through and vet names through the public,” Gibbs said. “The president, obviously, based on his understanding of the law, his understanding and teaching of the Constitution and his studying of the court, I think he has a pretty firm understanding of what he's looking for.”

Gibbs also said Obama was pleased that at least some of those he’s considering for the high court have not made it onto the short lists of the media and legal commentators.

“The president does take some heart in knowing that in all of the lists that have been seen and produced, there hasn't yet been one produced with the totality of names under which are being considered,” Gibbs said.

Some women’s groups have suggested that Obama should nominate a woman, since there is only one currently on the nine-member court. Gay activists have also said they’d like to see the court’s first openly gay or lesbian justice. And Latino groups are eager for some demographic weight on the court, which has never had a Hispanic justice unless one includes Benjamin Cardozo, who served from 1932 to 1938 and whose family had roots in Portugal.

A leading expert on law and gender issues, professor Deborah Rhode of the Stanford Law School, said Tuesday that the nomination of a gay or lesbian justice could be a huge advancement for the rights of homosexuals.

“In the world I’d like to inhabit, sexual orientation would be irrelevant to an appointment for judicial office,” Rhode told WBUR's “On Point.” “But in the imperfect world we now inhabit, I’d like to think that it’s an asset because the only way to get from here to there is for the nation to experience superbly qualified judges who are ‘out.’ ”

The nomination of the first African-American justice by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967 also caused some consternation, the professor noted.

“Thurgood Marshall was not an uncontroversial appointment,” she said. “Sometimes a controversial battle is worth fighting.”